Gender and employment in Tobago, 1838-1950

Dr Rita Pemberton

The gender-based employment pattern established during enslavement had a lasting impact on post-slavery employment on the island.

Both enslaved males and females were assigned duties as plantation workers. Since the majority were required in the field, both men and women were field workers, but field tasks were assigned according to physique and strength. The strongest and fittest enslaved – usually males – were assigned the most laborious tasks, such as clearing land, cutting trees and harvesting cane.

Some males were assigned jobs as skilled workers in sugar manufacturing and repairing buildings and machinery and some women employed in the homes of the planters as cooks, domestic workers, nurses, childminders and seamstresses. By far the majority of field workers, the job with the lowest status, were women.

During the immediate post-emancipation years, there was a determined planter effort to maintain the pre-emancipation labour system intact, but the freed Africans were equally determined to wrest themselves from planter control and find independent employment.

The Africans sought social mobility through increased earnings and alternative employment. While agriculture was not their first choice, for many it was initially their only option, especially up to the 1890s, under the metayage system of labour.

However, the immediate emancipation period demonstrated how the allocation of duties during enslavement equipped some, particularly males, with opportunities for independent employment in higher-earning jobs, while in other instances, once-important jobs became redundant.

The gender distribution of labour was affected by skills development during enslavement, the collapse of the sugar industry, the growth of the peasantry and the rise and decline of the cocoa industry, the union of Trinidad and Tobago, increased educational opportunities, World War II and the development of tourism, all of which affected the availability of other work.

Those enslaved Africans assigned skilled jobs on the plantations performed critical roles in producing, manufacturing and exporting sugar. This experience in skilled jobs which remained in demand gave them access to alternative and the most remunerative employment options. These were primarily males employed as construction workers – masons, carpenters and repairmen; in manufacturing – boilers and coopers; in food services – bakers and butchers; as seamen – fishermen, sailors and boatmen; and those associated with transport – grooms and blacksmiths.

They were among the first freed Africans to become established as independent operators and landowners. In addition, in their quest to reach the population, the churches offered males opportunities to become local assistants to their leaders. Thus, they were positioned to be better able to become independent and attain social mobility in the immediate post-emancipation years. While they were among the highest earners in the free world, women were at the bottom of the earning ladder, with fewer opportunities for upward mobility.

With the collapse of the sugar industry towards the end of the 19th century, skills specific to sugar production became redundant (coopers, boilers), and trades related to the era of horses and carriages, such as grooms and blacksmiths, declined.

Land owning and the growth of a peasantry became important avenues for improved social status; hence skilled men and women were advantageously placed to buy land with their earnings, and the growth of free villages created openings for bakers, hucksters, shopkeepers, parlour keepers, small stores, shoemakers, tailors, and seamstresses.

Inter-village trading facilitated huckstering and bartering, and the union of Trinidad and Tobago stimulated trafficking between the islands. This provided opportunities for women to become self-employed as hucksters, market vendors, bakers, confectioners and food producers on their family-owned or rented parcels of land.

There was a concomitant decline in agricultural workers as people sought employment in the service industries as porters, domestic work, and there was an increased demand for seafarers – fishermen, mariners and boatmen – as agriculture declined, especially in the windward districts.

Female agricultural labour, which was most marked in the leeward district, the centre of the sugar industry, declined as women employed themselves as bakers, confectioners and general workers, where they had an increased presence after 1900.

The 20th century saw a further increase in male social mobility as they became landowners, teachers, clerks and supervisors in private enterprises and in government services, as well as with the growth of peasant land-owning and the expanding cocoa industry.

Increased school attendance resulted in reduced participation in the workforce, but males continued to be employed in the highest-paying jobs, while for females these were limited to dressmaking and baking. The lowest-paid were agricultural, general and domestic workers and launderers, among whom women predominated. Thus, males were better positioned to become independent workers and property owners.

The best opportunities for female employment developed during the 20th century with a shift from agricultural and domestic employment to hucksters, shopkeepers and market vendors and general labourers. Women were the majority of plantation workers up to 1911, after which their numbers were reduced because of the post-war slump and decline of the cocoa industry in 1921, when more men were retained in agriculture.

After 1931, there was a high rate of unemployment, which stimulated heavy migration, especially of young males. Reduced activity on Tobago’s ports reduced the demand for mariners, because shipping was handled by the coastal steamers. There were fewer males and females in the domestic sector, where males functioned as gardeners, butlers and grooms and females as laundresses and domestic workers.

At this time there was a decline in female employment in all sectors in which they were traditionally employed. The provision of water supplies in Scarborough permitted increased laundering at home and reduced the need for laundresses, while ready-made clothing reduced the demand for seamstresses.

The local food-production policy implemented during World War II was beneficial to landowners and those in agriculture because of the stimulus to production, marketing and sales of locally produced food, but this boom was short-lived, and by 1946 the workforce had been significantly reduced and there were limited job opportunities for males and females, especially the latter.

The post-war period was marked by an increase in schools and school attendance, which created openings for females as teachers and clerical workers.

Women also benefited from the expanding tourist industry, with the opening of restaurants, bars and boarding houses. While their numbers as agricultural workers continued to decrease, women found employment as cooks, cleaners, janitors. but were still restricted to lower-paying jobs, while males worked in the more remunerative transport sector.

While the skills honed during enslavement provided an unintended, unforeseen benefit to some males after slavery, the practice of the lowest-earning and least socially desirable jobs being most available to women, established during enslavement, endured across the 19th century and into the 20th. Women broke that barrier by combining various jobs as producers, higglers, market vendors, traffickers and small business operators.

Male migration and increased access to education provided opportunities for female employment in teaching and some previously male-dominated areas, more marked after 1950.